I've got 2x1TB WD My Passport USB drives - one is my TimeMachine, always connected, the other is for a weekly Carbon Copy Clone. I also have three 128GB SanDisk USB sticks which I use with CCC. One for Music, one for Pictures/Photos and one for my 'Stuff" (eg documents and files) which backup when connected. I've a USB dock stuck on my desktop with a little bit of blutack for easy connection. Some stuff, but not much, is on iCloud for if I need access through my pad/phone.
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What do you use for both on site and off site backups?
- Thread starter VitoBotta
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Synology NAS that backs up to 2 offsite Synology NAS at 2 different locations. Daily and weekly jobs which mirror to offsite.
You don't think an SSD could fail after a year of usage? Why do you prefer an SSD? There is zero benefit of using an SSD for backups. If you have your backup solution set up properly with a minimum of raid 1 (though I would personally do a raid 5 system) it wouldn't matter if you disk failed after a month or 5 years. You wouldn't lose any data. However it's your money to spend as you wish.
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I too use Time Machine locally and BackBlaze for offsite backups. Works like a champ!
Chances are the SSD will outlast a mechanical drive. They have proven to be a lot more reliable. Many of the early concerns have been debunked.
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That still doesn't prove how an SSD can be of any real benefit for backup purposes. Sure the SSD may last longer, but you are going to be limited in max size compared to mechanical drives. Placing all of your faith in a single drive solution is about as smart as skydiving without a spare. A solution is only as good as it's redundancy.
LOL - I was responding to your comments "There is zero benefit of using an SSD for backups."
There are good use cases for mechanical and SSD drives. SSD drives have proven to be a better solution so IF you are going to have one drive, it may be the type to have. They do come bigger than 32 GB too, you know ;-). Having that one SSD along with a cloud storage solution (for offsite storage in case of fire, theft, etc) is a great solution.
Really? There are drives bigger than 32GB? Now that changes everything. Trust me I have been around long enough to actually see the evolution of hardware and the internet on a 300 baud modem. Regardless, most SSD's that I have seen are 4TB at around a $350 price point. 4TB is going to fill up rather quickly. My original comment was based on a comment that never specified a solution other than a single ssd. I have no problems with a single ssd and a cloud backup. There are some drawbacks to cloud solutions like pulling down a full backup can take days or they may have to send a physical drive to restore from.
Ever since SSDs went from MLC to TLC and is now moving to QLC I've grown more and more wary of SSDs. I only use them now for the OS and applications, and short term work files that get backed up to HDs daily. Anything I want to store long term goes to multiple backups on HDs.
Time Machine set to 1x/day to a local HDD
Carbon Copy Cloner ~1x/month to a portable HDD I keep offsite
I only own about 4-5 TB of data all in all (mostly media), so this isn't a heavy lift hardware-wise.
In a home disaster, any gaps between my CCC offsite backups would be filled in with the files saved to my 2TB iCloud Drive.
Carbon Copy Cloner ~1x/month to a portable HDD I keep offsite
I only own about 4-5 TB of data all in all (mostly media), so this isn't a heavy lift hardware-wise.
In a home disaster, any gaps between my CCC offsite backups would be filled in with the files saved to my 2TB iCloud Drive.
Just grab whatever's on sale from a recognizable brand, and has a reasonable warranty.
https://diskprices.com/ is pretty great for this kind of thing if you want to shop on Amazon.
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Really depends on usage. This is just anecdotal, but my last iMac had a Fusion Drive installed -- a 1TB HDD paired with a small SSD. The SSD died before the HDD. It had just had so many read/write cycles that it was down to (according to DriveDX and another utility I used) under 10% of its usable lifespan. This was definitely caused by the small SSD being hammered with read/write cycles... but they definitely have a finite lifespan which can get reached if you use them hard enough.
Same with spinning platters. Forget the company who does this but they do a reports on drive life. SSD’s do really well. If not mistaken they do better than alternatives. This is at an enterprise level switch SSDs used in large SANs.
My 2017 Maxbook Pro only has an SSD and it’s been great.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
- Synology as at-home Time Machine (TM) backup. Synology also has its own single drive failure, RAID 5-like backup option active. So a drive could randomly conk, I get an alert, replace the dead drive, let Synology rebuild to incorporate the drive and I've lost no data.
- Big HDD as at-bank (safe deposit) box backup. This disk is partitioned: TM backup up into a few TBs partition 1 and, in the rest of the space, I use Chronosync to sync specific files & folders like Documents, Music, Photos, Work folders, etc. Yes, this means that I have TWO copies of select personal files on the disc at the same time but that's OK by me. Some of the stuff I back up into this space is excluded from the TM target (for backup). Chronosync is ideal for this selective files & folder backup IMO.
- Second Big HDD at home set up and used just like #2. #3 & #2 rotate between home and bank safe deposit box roughly every 4 weeks (and just before any travel where the risk of theft of #1 & #2 + Mac is highest).
- Key work folders of original content regularly synched Desktop to/from Laptop, effectively yielding nearly 2 live copies of key files too.
- Key personal files like home movie collection shared with other family members in other states, updated with new ones when I visit them. These are the most distant backups of original files I would hate to completely lose.
There's probably a flaw here but it is not obvious to me. Through my lens, it's probably overkill to have both Synology + #2 & #3 as- effectively- 3 complete TM backups. I'm going to the bank roughly every 4 weeks anyway, so it's no big hassle to swap the HDDs while I'm there.
And yes, a cloud option could be added to the mix (perhaps replacing #2 & #3 with no trips to the bank) but I have no interest in cloud solutions. IMO- injecting strangers between my data and me seems to fundamentally miss the point of completely secure backups. I'd rather have my own 100% controlled "clouds" in the form of HDDs that float back and forth from home/office & bank safe deposit box.
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I must be very, very old fashioned. I keep paper copies of my most important data such as financial accountants in a bank safe deposit box. I print out an update every three months. Otherwise I use Time Machine on a HDD. I also have a SSD with images in the safe-deposit box. I have a paper copy of all my passwords in the safe deposit box so my children can access my computer when I pass. (I am 84)
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Dead Sea scrolls paper made it 2000 years.
Ancient Aliens HDDs or SSDs have never been found. Or have they???
So your paper-based approach is as good as any as long as it works for you.
The very best backup starts with ANY backup. For many people, that's where they mess up: they have no backup.
Ancient Aliens HDDs or SSDs have never been found. Or have they???
So your paper-based approach is as good as any as long as it works for you.
The very best backup starts with ANY backup. For many people, that's where they mess up: they have no backup.
in my case, I used to use TM but then 3 or so years ago when I was still using Aperture, that Aperture db got corrupted and I was unable to restore from my TM backup. It was a major pita to extract all the actual photos out of Aperture but I lost all my metadata. From a backup perspective, I switched to CCC ...
Curious to know if everyone who uses Backblaze uses personal backup or B2, because in the first case I would not really call it a backup with a retention of 30 days or 1 year.
Personal Backup and if I'm so bad off that I can't get to my backup in a year that's the least of my worries. If it was going to be more than 30 days I would turn on the extended version history and get to it when I had time.
I think of it as an insurance policy in case my place burned down, I was robbed, etc. I do local backups also.
